Notes from the Trump White House
January 28, 2017 at 6:13AM
Two Russian intelligence officers who worked on cyberoperations and a Russian computer security expert have been arrested and charged with treason for providing information to the U.S., according to multiple Russian news reports. The New York Times cited Russian media reports that link the charges to the disclosure of the Russian role in attacking state election boards, including the scanning of voter rolls in Arizona and Illinois, and do not mention the parallel attacks on the Democratic National Committee and the e-mails of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that President Donald Trump is "eager to work with" GOP lawmakers in undoing new federal protections for Bears Ears, a sacred tribal site in Utah. Former President Barack Obama designated the 1.35 million-acre area, which includes artifacts from ancestral Pueblos, as a national monument in late December. But Hatch and other key Utah Republicans have argued for months that Obama should not have invoked his authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act to protect the site.
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley started her first day saying that she's prepared to take names of countries that oppose the U.S., as the new administration starts its foreign policy overhaul. The U.S. will "have the backs of our allies and make sure that our allies have our back as well," she said Friday. "For those that don't have our back, we're taking names."
President Donald Trump's statement marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day omitted any mention of Jews or anti-Semitism, a departure from recent bipartisan precedent set by previous presidents. The statement called for remembrance of "victims, survivors, heroes," but did not mention the millions of Jewish people killed in the Holocaust, nor does it mention the anti-Semitism that led to the killings.
President Donald Trump agreed Friday with top White House aide Stephen Bannon that the mainstream media is the "opposition party." Trump made his comments in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network a day after Bannon's remark.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in an interview Friday that President Donald Trump is a "very smart, capable guy," but he wouldn't say whether Mexico should pay for a border wall.
New services
